Hood

'Oh, aye, a good enough place to practise iniquity, perhaps, or lose your purse-if not your life.' He shook his head at the implied depravity. 'But we have a bed waiting for us where we will not be set upon by anything more onerous than a psalm.'

'You know of such a place?' asked Ffreol.

'There is a monastery just across the river,' Friar Aethelfrith informed them. 'The Abbey of Saint Mary the Virgin. I have stayed there before. They will give us a bowl and bed for the night.'

Aethelfrith's silver penny held good for four more jars and half a loaf of bread, sliced and smeared with pork drippings, which only served to rouse their appetites. Halfway through the second jar, Bran had begun to feel as if Lundein might not be as bad as his first impression had led him to believe. He became more certain when he caught the young alewife watching him; she offered him a saucy smile and gave a little toss of her head, indicating that he should follow. With a nod and a wink, she disappeared around the back of the house, with Bran a few steps behind her. As Bran came near, she lifted her skirt a little and extended her leg to reveal a shapely ankle.

'It is a lovely river, is it not?' observed Aethelfrith, falling into step beside him.

'It is not the river I am looking at,' said Bran. 'Go back and finish your ale, and I will join you when I've finished here.'

'Oh,' replied the friar, 'I think you've had enough already.' Waving to the young woman, he took Bran by the arm and steered him back the way they had come. 'Evening is upon us,' he observed. 'We'll be going on.,,

'I'm hungry,' said Bran. Glancing back at the alewife, he saw that she had gone inside. 'We should eat something.'

'Aye, we will,' agreed Tuck, 'but not here.' They rejoined the others, and Bran returned to his jar, avoiding the stern glance of Brother Ffreol, 'Drink up, my friends,' ordered Tuck. 'It is time we were moving along.'

With a last look toward the inn, Bran drained his cup and reluctantly followed the others back to their mounts and climbed back into the saddle. 'How many times have you been to Lundein?' he asked as they continued their slow plod into the city.

'Oh, a fair few,' Aethelfrith replied. 'Four or five times, I think, though the last time was when old King William was on the throne.' He paused to consider. 'Seven years ago, perhaps.'

At King's Bridge they stopped in the road. Bran had never seen a bridge so wide and long, and despite the crowds now hurrying to their homes on the other side of the river, he was not certain he wanted to venture out too far. He was on the point of dismounting to lead his horse across when Aethelfrith saw his hesitation. 'Five hundred men on horseback cross this bridge every day,' he called, 'and oxcarts by the score. It will yet bear a few more.'

'I was merely admiring the handiwork,' Bran told him. He gave his mount a slap and started across. Indeed, it was ingeniously constructed with beams of good solid oak and iron spikes; it neither swayed nor creaked as they crossed. All the same, he was happy to reach the far side, where Aethelfrith, now afoot, began leading them up one narrow, shadowed street and down another until the three Welshmen had lost all sense of direction.

'I know it is here somewhere,' said Aethelfrith. They paused at a small crossroads to consider where to look next. The twisting streets were filling up with smoke from the hearth fires of the houses round about.

'Night is upon us,' Ffreol pointed out. 'If we cannot find it in the daylight, we will fare no better in the dark.'

'We are near,' insisted the fat little priest. 'I remember this place, do I not?'

Just then a bell rang out -a clear, distinct tone in the still evening air.

'Ah!' cried Aethelfrith. 'That will be the call to vespers. This way!' Following the sound of the bell, they soon arrived at a gate in a stone wall. 'Here!' he said, hurrying to the gate. 'This is the placeI told you I would remember.'

'So you did,' replied Bran. 'How could we have doubted?'

The mendicant priest pulled a small rope that passed through a hole in the wooden door. Another bell tinkled softly, and presently the door swung open. A thin, round-shouldered priest dressed in a long robe of undyed wool stepped out to greet them. One glance at the two priests in their robes, and he said, 'Welcome, brothers! Peace and welcome.'

A quick word with the porter, and their lodgings for the night were arranged. They ate soup with the brothers in the refectory, and while Ffreol and Aethelfrith attended the night vigil with the resident monks, Bran and Iwan went to the cell provided for them and fell asleep on fleece-covered straw mats. Upon arising with the bell the next morning, Bran saw that Ffreol and Aethelfrith were already at prayer; he pulled on his boots, brushed the straw from his cloak, and went out into the abbey yard to wait until the holy office was finished.

While he waited, he rehearsed in his mind what they should say to William the Red. Now that the fateful day had dawned, Bran found himself lost for words and dwarfed by the awful knowledge of how much depended upon his ability to persuade the English king of the injustice being perpetrated on his people. His heart sank lower and lower as he contemplated the dreary future before him: an impoverished lackey to a Ffreinc bounder whose reputation for profligate spending was exceeded only by his whoring and drinking.

When at last Ffreol and Aethelfrith emerged from the chapel, Bran had decided he would swear an oath to the devil himself if it would keep the vile invaders from Elfael.

The travellers took their leave and, passing beyond the monastery gates, entered the streets of the city to make their way to the White Tower, as the king's stronghold was known.

Bran could see the pale stone structure rising above the rooftops of the low, mean houses sheltering in the shadows of the fortress walls. At the gates, Brother Ffreol declared Bran's nobility and announced their intent to the porter, who directed them into the yard and showed them where to tie their horses. They were then met by a liveried servant, who conducted them into the fortress itself and to a large anteroom lined with benches on which a score or more men-mostly Ffreinc, but some English-were already waiting; others were standing in clumps and knots the length of the room. The thought of having to wait his turn until all had been seen cast Bran into a dismal mood.

They settled in a far corner of the room. Every now and then a courtier would appear, summon one or more petitioners, and take them away. For good or ill, those summoned never returned to the anteroom, so the mood remained one of hopeful, if somewhat desperate, optimism. 'I have heard of people waiting twenty days or more to speak to the king,' Friar Aethelfrith confided as he cast his glance around the room at the men lining the benches.

'We will not bide that long,' Bran declared, but he sank a little further into gloom at the thought. Some of those in the room did indeed look as if they might have taken up more or less permanent residence there; they brought out food from well-stocked tuck bags, some slept, and others whiled away the time playing at dice. Morning passed, and the day slowly crept away.

It was after midday, and Bran's stomach had begun reminding him that he had eaten nothing but soup and hard bread since the day before, when the door at the end of the great vestibule opened and a courtier in yellow leggings and a short tunic and mantle of bright green entered, passing slowly along the benches and eyeing the petitioners who looked up hopefully. At his approach, Bran stood. 'We want to see the king,' he said in his best Latin.

'Yes,' replied the man, 'and what is the nature of your business here?'

'We want to see the king.'

'To be sure.' The court official glanced at those attending Bran and said, 'You four are together?'

'We are,' replied Bran.

'The question is why would you see the king?'

'We have come to seek redress for a crime committed in the king's name,' Bran explained.

The official's glance sharpened. 'What sort of crime?'

'The slaughter of our lord and his warband and the seizure of our lands,' volunteered Brother Ffreol, taking his place beside Bran.

'Indeed!' The courtier became grave. 'When did this happen?'

'Not more than ten days ago,' replied Bran.

The courtier regarded the men before him and made up his mind. 'Come.'

'We will see the king now?'

'You will follow me.'